America loves a sob story, but they also love a social story. America’s Got Talent has brought Golden Buzzers, Simon "no's", and the world's wildest acts to America’s biggest stage for 18 Seasons. This social marketing campaign was designed with the aim of spreading awarness and hype, while promoting the upcoming season in a fresh way. Here are the key objectives of AGT’s viral social marketing campaign:
Raise Awareness and Build Hype: Craft a narrative that resonates with the audience, creating anticipation for the upcoming season.
Welcome The Weird: Embrace the eccentricity that defines AGT's charm, ensuring that the campaign stands out in a cluttered digital landscape. We normalized the weird, tapping into unique acts and artists to break the barrier of social media's standard and give these performers a greater stage on social media.
Increase Engagement and Online Sharability: Foster a sense of community engagement, encouraging audiences to actively participate and share their excitement across social media by live-posting throughout the episode and sending in questions for our Judges to answer online and on Live Television.
The campaign's strategy rested on three pillars:
Overcoming Burnout After 18 Seasons: Recognizing the challenge of maintaining audience enthusiasm after nearly two decades on air, the campaign embraced a self-aware approach. This involved acknowledging the show's rich history while promising fresh, never-before-seen acts, surprises and social content.
Shareability: Embracing the audience's interest for the peculiar, the team actively encouraged fans to share and interact with the campaign content, fostering a sense of community around the AGT brand. We launched our IG Broadcast Channel heading into live shows, with a custom message from Howie Mandel, to provide another outlet for engagement and to share exclusive content from talent and behind-the-scenes.
Leverage Talent and Creators: Recognizing the star power of individuals like Sofía Vergara, who secured the #3 ranking in SCRs Top Series Talent in 2023, we strategically collaborated with our Judges to amplify our message. And for the first time ever, we welcomed Creators into the AGT fold, seamlessly integrating them to amplify live show performances. This groundbreaking Creator activation garnered over 2 million video views and 20,000 engagements.
The campaign achieved astounding results. It not only made a significant digital impact, but an equally as strong affect on broadcast linear.
#1 Summer Show on Broadcast: AGT emerged as NBC's highest-ranked summer show, attaining a dominant position in the competitive summer television landscape.
11 Million New Fans: The campaign successfully expanded AGT's digital footprint, attracting over 11 million new followers across various social media platforms. This is a 414% increase compared to 2022. The fact that 11 Million new people still find interest in a show that's been around for 18 Seasons is a success in itself.
Most Social Season in 18 Years: The engagement levels and video views during AGT Season 18 surpassed previous records, marking it as the most social season in the show's 18-year history. The campaign not only invigorated the digital presence of AGT but also translated into tangible success on linear broadcast, solidifying its status as a social triumph. AGT brought in over 5 Billion video views (a 187% increase from 2022) and 512 Million owned engagements (a 60% increase from 2022), across plattforms in 2023.
